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gaza health ministry
Israeli Analysis Affirms Gaza Health Ministry’s Official Palestinian Death Count
One Israeli expert placed discrepancies in the list at "around 1%." Another said the error rate appears even lower.
Feb 24, 2026
An Israeli analysis published Tuesday examining the Gaza Health Ministry's list of Palestinians killed during Israel's US-backed annihilation of the Gaza Strip largely affirmed the official death count, while noting some imperfections in the 2,000-page document.
Haaretz, Israel's oldest daily newspaper, dissected the Gaza Health Ministry's (GHM) database of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, which at the time contained nearly 70,000 names—it's now over 72,000—in part by using artificial intelligence to analyze the massive file.
"A consensus has taken shape: Even if the list has weaknesses, including the fact that it does not differentiate between combatants and civilians, it reflects the scale of the disaster inflicted on Gaza and its people," article author Nir Hasson wrote. "It also forms the basis for allegations that Israel committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and even genocide."
Lee Mordechai, a historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who says Israeli is committing genocide in Gaza, told Hasson, "It's clear that the list isn't 100% accurate and that it has errors, but I think they're around 1%."
Gabriel Epstein, an associate at the US-based Israel Policy Forum who was formerly skeptical of the GHM list, "now believes it is largely accurate and may even slightly undercount the dead," according to Hasson.
"Epstein reviewed the list obtained by Haaretz," the article states. "He found 24 duplicates and 38 entries with problems in the ID numbers. That means 99.91% of the entries were complete, with verified ID numbers. He also found that 64 deaths that had appeared on earlier lists were later removed, while 158 names removed by March of last year were added back."
The GHM list notably only contains the names of people who died from combat-related violence, not from "hunger, disease, accidents, or the collapse of the health system."
It also does not include the thousands of people who are missing and likely dead and buried beneath the rubble of the 80% of Gaza's buildings that have been destroyed or damaged during the war.
Other research, including multiple peer-reviewed studies in the prestigious British medical journal the Lancet, have also concluded that the ministry was undercounting the number of people killed by Israel's war on Gaza.
As for the issue of Hamas not differentiating between combatants and civilians on the ministry's death list, an investigation last year by Israeli journalist and filmmaker Yuval Abraham and Guardian senior international affairs correspondent Emma Graham-Harrison analyzed classified Israel Defense Forces intelligence data showing that 5 in 6 Palestinians killed by Israeli troops through the first 19 months of the war were civilians. The probe obliterated IDF claims of a historically low civilian-to-combatant kill ratio.
Last September, Former IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi—who was in command for much of the war—said that “over 10%” of Gaza’s approximately 2.2 million people “were killed or injured” since October 2023. Halevi’s acknowledgment tracked with GHM figures showing at least 228,815 people killed or wounded at the time.
In January, Israeli media outlets including Haaretz, the Jerusalem Post, and the Times of Israel reported that the IDF accepted the accuracy of GHM's death count, which at the time stood at over 71,000.
Israeli officials and media, along with their supportive US counterparts during both the Biden and Trump administrations, once cast doubt upon or outright denied GHM figures because the ministry is under Hamas' control. These aspersions came in addition to widespread Israeli and US denials of Israel’s forced famine and starvation deaths and IDF war crimes in Gaza.
"As the months have passed, claims of fabrication and exaggeration have largely remained confined to Israeli television panels," Hasson wrote in the new analysis. "At the end of January, an apparent dispute over the number of dead seemed to end in Israel when a senior army source confirmed that the IDF recognizes that 70,000 people died, precisely the figure cited by Gazan authorities."
"Even if the argument over the total number of dead is, for now, largely settled, disagreement in Israel continues over who the dead were," he continued. "How many were gunmen, how many were affiliated with Hamas, how many were killed under circumstances that meet the conditions of international law?"
"None of this alters the stark figures in the table," Hasson added. "Of the recorded deaths, 20,876, about 30%, are young girls, teenage girls, and women. Another 3,220 were aged 65 and over, including the final name on the list, Tamam al-Batsh, who was 110 when she died."
While Israel officials continue to insist that GHM figures are "misleading and unreliable"—or even "fake"—Hasson noted the general consistency between Israeli and Palestinian tallies across past Israeli attacks on Gaza. During Operation Cast Lead (2008-09), the Palestinian count was 23% higher than Israel's. For Operation Pillar of Success (2012), Israel's tally of Gazan deaths was 11% higher than the Palestinian figure. In Operation Protective Edge (2014), the Palestinian count was 8% higher. And during 2021's Operation Guardian of the Walls, Palestinian officials counted 10% more Gaza deaths than Israel.
The United Nations and US administrations of both major political parties have long acknowledged the GHM's accounting of Palestinian casualties in Israeli attacks, including the assault that began in October 2023.
Hasson noted that "it has been increasingly harder to find Israeli officials commenting on the subject" of the GHM death count in the ongoing war as evidence of its accuracy mounts.
"Since the war began," he said, "Israel has made no serious effort to demonstrate that the list is false or to present an alternative. It has not proven even once that a person listed as deceased is in fact alive."
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After 2 Years of Denial, IDF Confirms 70,000+ Killed in Gaza—But Denies Famine
"The real figure is much higher," said one UK lawmaker. "This is a 'ceasefire' in name only. The slaughter goes on."
Jan 29, 2026
After two years of denial and deception, the Israel Defense Forces acknowledged Wednesday for the first time that over 70,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, while continuing to deny the famine Israel caused by blocking humanitarian aid from entering the obliterated strip.
Israeli media including the Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, and others reported that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) accepts the accuracy of the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry's (GHM) death toll, which currently stands at least 71,667, with more than 171,000 others wounded and 9,500 missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of bombed buildings.
"How many years did we spend screaming, with checked and re-checked figures, lists showing names and ID numbers, being told the numbers were completely fanciful despite rigorous, transparent verification, and now the IDF quietly accepts that they were correct all along," Beirut-based journalist Séamus Malekafzali said on X in response to the IDF admission.
Experts—including the authors of multiple peer-reviewed studies in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet—assert that the actual death toll in Gaza is much higher than reported. Last June, a study published in Nature reported 84,000 deaths in Gaza. Others say the toll could be even higher, with one Economist study estimating between 77,000-109,000 Gazans killed by Israeli forces.
"We should not care what the IDF accepts or not—they perpetrated the genocide," said Jake Romm, the US representative for the Hind Rajab Foundation, which tracks suspected IDF war criminals and is named after a 5-year-old Palestinian girl massacred along with relatives and rescue workers by Israeli occupation forces on January 29, 2024. "Their communications are in service of that project."
"This is, in any event, an admission that will only be used to discredit the real, much higher death toll as the scale of the atrocity becomes known," Romm added.
Israeli academic Ori Goldberg was also skeptical of the IDF's admission, asserting on X: "'Accepts' means that even the vast network of lies no longer holds. If the IDF 'accepts' 70,000, it has killed innumerably more."
While the IDF accepted GHM's death toll, it argued that the famine in Gaza—which officially lasted from August-December 2025, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the standard international framework for classifying food insecurity and malnutrition—did not happen.
GHM says at least 453 Palestinians, including 150 children, have died of malnutrition in Gaza since October 2023. The IDF contends that the figure is a mix of lies and misleading reporting about people who had preexisting health conditions before they starved to death.
However, famine experts argue that Israel orchestrated a carefully planned campaign of mass starvation in Gaza.
Throughout the war, Israeli leaders, their supporters abroad, and mainstream US media attempted to discredit GHM casualty figures by casting aspersions upon the "Hamas-run" ministry. This, despite Israeli military intelligence deeming the figures accurate and historical confirmations of their reliability.
"The phrase *Hamas* Health Ministry was used as a slur for years to signal unreliability, even though it was pointed out again and again that its numbers had always held up," noted journalist Jasper Nathaniel, adding sardonically that "I’m sure the 'Pallywood' crowd will be rushing to apologize today."
The International Center for Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) said on social media that "every media outlet that cast doubt over these figures with dogwhistling phrases like 'Hamas-run MoH' is complicit in these killings."
"In truth, the 71,000+ figure is conservative," ICJP added. "Palestinian bodies are buried under the rubble and can't be counted and many more have died from malnutrition due to Israel's deliberate starvation of Palestinians. Different tools, same outcome: Israeli genocide of Palestinians."
In the United States—which has supported Israel's annihilation of Gaza with tens of billions of dollars in armed aid and diplomatic cover including vetoes of numerous United Nations Security Council ceasefire resolutions during both the Biden and Trump administrations—the House of Representatives approved a bipartisan amendment in June 2024 that banned US officials from using State Department resources to cite GHM casualty figures.
The amendment's lead sponsor, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.)—whose all-time top campaign contributor is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)—contended that “at the end of the day, the Gaza Ministry of Health is the Hamas Ministry of Health."
Former President Joe Biden faced genocide denial accusations for casting aspersions upon GHM reports. President Donald Trump has also said he does not believe that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
A senior IDF official told the Times of Israel that the military is in the process of determining how many of the Gaza dead were members of Hamas or other militant groups.
While the Israeli government has claimed a historically low civilian-to-combatant kill ratio in Gaza, classified IDF intelligence data obtained last year during an investigation by Israeli journalist and filmmaker Yuval Abraham of +972 Magazine and Local Call and Guardian senior international affairs correspondent Emma Graham-Harrison revealed that 5 in 6 Palestinians—or 83%—killed by the IDF through the first 19 months of the US-backed war were civilians.
Former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi—who led the IDF through most of the war—acknowledged after retiring last year that "over 10%" of Gaza's population, or about 220,000 Palestinians, had been killed or wounded as of September 2025.
“This is not a gentle war," Halevi said at the time, "we took the gloves off from the first minute."
Following the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel, the IDF dramatically loosened its rules of engagement, effectively allowing an unlimited number of civilians to be killed when targeting a single Hamas member, no matter how low-ranking.
The IDF’s use of massive ordnance, including US-supplied 1,000- and 2,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs capable of leveling entire city blocks, and utilization of artificial intelligence to select targets has resulted in staggering numbers of civilian deaths, including numerous instances of dozens or more people being massacred in single strikes.
Through it all, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli political and military leaders claimed that the IDF, "the most moral army in the world," went to great lengths to avoid harming civilians.
While Israeli leaders scoffed at war crimes allegations, South Africa filed a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The ICJ, a UN body, subsequently issued multiple provisional orders for Israel to prevent genocidal acts. Israel has been accused of ignoring these orders, and last September a panel of UN experts concluded that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.
Later, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation.
The killing isn't over. Since a tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect last October 10, Israeli forces have killed more than 500 Palestinians in over 1,200 violations of the truce. Palestinians—mostly children and infants—are also still dying of exposure to cold weather as Israel continues to restrict the entry of aid into Gaza.
"They said Palestinians were exaggerating. Lying. Propagandists," Independent UK Member of Parliament Shockat Adam said on X Thursday. "Now, even the IDF accepts 70,000+ killed in Gaza. The real figure is much higher. This is a 'ceasefire' in name only. The slaughter goes on."
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'There Is No Ceasefire' Say Gazans as Israeli Strikes Kill, Wound Hundreds
"The occupation targets whoever it wants, stopping and resuming the genocide every few days as if playing with our lives," said one young woman from Gaza.
Oct 31, 2025
More than 800 Palestinians have been killed or wounded since the October 10 truce between Israel and Hamas, leaving many residents of the still-embattled, still-starved strip to question whether there is actually any "ceasefire" at all.
“There is no ceasefire,” Hala, a 20-year-old woman who was awakened from her sleep Tuesday when an Israeli missile struck her neighbor's home, told The Intercept on Thursday. "The occupation targets whoever it wants, stopping and resuming the genocide every few days as if playing with our lives.”
Hala was looking forward to her upcoming wedding. But the Israeli attack killed her fiancé's cousin, his wife, and all but one of their children. The wedding has now been postponed.
The slain relatives were among the at least 104 Palestinians killed by Israeli strikes on Tuesday, according to the Gaza Health Ministry—whose casualty figures have been deemed accurate by Israeli military officials and a likely undercount by multiple peer-reviewed studies.
The Israel Defense Forces claimed Tuesday's attacks targeted "dozens of key terrorists," however IDF officials provided details on just 26 suspected militants. The Gaza Health Ministry said 46 children and 20 women were among those killed by the Israeli strikes.
“There is no doubt this is an attack on civilians,” Dr. Morten Rostrup, a physician with Doctors Without Borders working at al-Aqsa Hospital in Gaza City, told The Intercept. “Do we really call this a ceasefire?”
The Gaza Health Ministry says at least 211 people have been killed and 597 others wounded since the truce went into effect on October 10.
Since the Gaza genocide began in response to the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, Israeli forces have killed at least 68,519 Palestinians and wounded over 170,300 others. Around 9,500 Palestinians remain missing and feared dead and buried beneath rubble. Leaked classified IDF documents suggest that over 80% of slain Palestinians were civilians.
Gaza officials say Israeli forces have violated the ceasefire at least 125 times. Meanwhile, Israel has cited relatively minor violations of the truce by Hamas, which have resulted in only a handful of Israeli casualties, as justification for the resumption of strikes that have left hundreds dead and wounded.
Still, US President Donald Trump—whose administration played a key role in brokering the truce—insists that the ceasefire is holding.
“I think none of us should be surprised that Israel has continued breaking the ceasefire,” Tariq Kenney-Shawa, a US policy fellow at New York-based Al-Shabaka, The Palestinian Policy Network, told The Intercept.
"It very much still fits into the Trump administration’s bigger picture, because as long as they can kind of say that there is a quote-unquote ‘ceasefire’ in effect, as long as they can say, ‘At least it’s better than before,’ that enables the US and the rest of the international community to let up on the pressure on Israel and to return to business as usual," added Kenney-Shawa, who is Palestinian and whose family is from Gaza.
Khaled Elgindy, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, said, "For Trump and for the Israelis, what matters is the appearance of a ceasefire."
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'We Took the Gloves Off': Former Israeli Military Chief Admits 220,000 Gaza Casualties
"Looking forward to the contortions of people whose paychecks are dependent on denying that any of this is the case," said one observer.
Sep 12, 2025
Belying persistent efforts by Israel and its defenders to deny the staggering number of Palestinians killed during the 23-month Gaza genocide, the general who led the Israel Defense Forces during most of the war acknowledged this week that around 220,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded.
Former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi—who stepped down in March after leading the IDF since January 2023—told residents of Ein Habor in southern Israel earlier this week that "over 10%" of Gaza's population of approximately 2.2 million "were killed or injured" since October 2023.
"This is not a gentle war, we took the gloves off from the first minute" Halevi said, adding that "not once" has any legal authority "limited" his wartime conduct.
Following the October 7 attack, the IDF dramatically loosened its rules of engagement, effectively allowing an unlimited number of civilians to be killed when targeting a single Hamas member, no matter how low-ranking.
The IDF’s use of massive ordnance, including US-supplied 1,000- and 2,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs capable of leveling entire city blocks, and utilization of artificial intelligence to select targets has resulted in staggering numbers of civilian deaths, including numerous instances of dozens or more people being massacred in single strikes.
Halevi insisted that "we are doing everything in accordance with international law."
The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague disagrees, having issued warrants for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes including forced starvation and murder. Israel's conduct in the war is also the subject of an International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case filed by South Africa and supported by around two dozen nations.
Halevi's admission tracks with official Gaza Health Ministry figures showing at least 228,815 people killed or wounded by Israeli forces in Gaza. GHM also says that around 9,000 people are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Experts—including the authors of multiple peer-reviewed studies in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet—assert that the actual death toll in Gaza is much higher than reported.
The remarks by Halevi come less than a month after a joint investigation by Israeli journalist and filmmaker Yuval Abraham of +972 Magazine and Local Call and Guardian senior international affairs correspondent Emma Graham-Harrison revealed that, as of May, 5 in 6 Palestinians—or 83%—killed by the IDF through the first 19 months of the war were civilians. The report, which drew from classified IDF intelligence data, blew the lid off of Israeli government claims of a historically low civilian-to-combatant kill ratio.
Responding to Halevi's admission, Drop Site News national security and foreign affairs reporter Murtaza Hussain said on social media that he is "looking forward to the contortions of people whose paychecks are dependent on denying that any of this is the case."
Israeli officials and media, along with their supportive US counterparts during both the Biden and Trump administrations, have generally cast doubt or outright denied GHM figures—which have been found to be reliable by the IDF, US officials, and researchers—by linking them to Hamas. This comes in addition to widespread Israeli and US denials of Israel's forced famine and starvation deaths and IDF war crimes in Gaza.
However, there have been rare instances of frankness, including when Barbara Leaf, a senior State Department official during the Biden administration, said that Gaza casualties could be "even higher than are being cited." Biden-era State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller also admitted that the Gaza death toll "could very well be more" than GHM reported, even as he lied to the public about who was thwarting ceasefire efforts.
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Israel Massacres Gaza Children Fetching Water, Starves 13 More Palestinians to Death
"A child in Gaza shouldn't have to die for a sip of water," said one Palestinian American critic. "Families are starving, fleeing under bombs, with nowhere safe to go. Humanity is failing them."
Sep 02, 2025
Israeli occupation forces killed scores more Palestinians in Gaza on Tuesday, including 13 people who starved to death and at least 11 others—including seven children—massacred while collecting water in a so-called "safe zone."
The Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) said that at least 89 Gazans were killed in Israeli attacks throughout the embattled strip since dawn Tuesday, including 42 in Gaza City, where Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops are pushing ahead with Operation Gideon's Chariots 2, a campaign to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse the Palestinian exclave.
At least 11 Palestinians, including nine children, were killed in an IDF airstrike as they gathered water in al-Mawasi, an area where Israeli authorities encouraged people to flee ahead of the invasion of northern Gaza.
Earlier on Tuesday, the IDF's spokesperson for Arab media issued an advisory stating, "To all residents of the Gaza Strip, in preparation for the expansion of fighting into Gaza City, we remind you that the al-Mawasi area will witness the provision of better humanitarian services, particularly those related to healthcare, water, and food."
Responding to the massacre, Palestinian American journalist Alexandra Halaby wrote on X: "A child in Gaza shouldn't have to die for a sip of water. Families are starving, fleeing under bombs, with nowhere safe to go. Humanity is failing them. Demand a ceasefire. Demand aid. Demand justice."
Assal Rad, a media critic and scholar of Middle East history, posted a graphic photo of some of the slain children on X, quipping, "More Israeli 'self-defense' today in Gaza."
Also on Tuesday, GHM said it registered 13 deaths, including three children, due to starvation and malnutrition over the past 24 hours. That brings the total number of deaths from the Gaza famine caused by Israel to at least 361—130 of them children.
All told, Israel's 697-day annihilation and siege of Gaza have killed at least 63,633 Palestinians—most of them women and children—while wounding more than 160,900 others and leaving thousands more missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Experts say the actual number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces is likely far higher than the official GHM figures.
Israel's conduct in the war and Israeli leaders' statements of intent to destroy Gaza and its people are the subject of an ongoing International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case. On Monday, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) joined the growing number of groups and individuals calling Israel's war on Gaza a genocide.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are also fugitives from the International Criminal Court, which last year issued arrest warrants accusing the pair of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder and forced starvation.
Two more Palestinian journalists were also killed by Israel forces on Tuesday. Eman Al-Zamli was reportedly killed by IDF drone fire while fetching drinking water near the Hamad City neighborhood, north of Khan Younis. Rasmi Salem of the Manara Media Company was killed in an IDF strike on Abu al-Amin Street near al-Jalaa Square in Gaza City.
According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), United Nations experts, and Gaza officials, between 210 and 275 Palestinian media workers have been killed by IDF bombs and bullets since October 2023.
On Sunday, dozens of Lebanese journalists and others rallied in Beirut's Martyrs' Square for a sit-in protest to express solidarity with Palestinian colleagues killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.
"Journalists are being killed in Gaza because they show the world what they see with their own eyes," Walid Kilani, Hamas' media official in Lebanon, told the demonstrators, according to L'Orient Today.
The Beirut rally followed a Saturday silent protest march for slain Palestinian journalists held in the Swedish cities of Stockholm and Göteborg, and an open call by more than 200 advocacy groups, media outlets, and journalists for Israel to let foreign reporters into Gaza.
"At the rate journalists are being killed in Gaza by the Israeli army, there will soon be no one left to keep you informed," said RSF.
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Entire UN Security Council Except US Says Gaza Famine 'Man-Made' as 10 More People Starve to Death
While acknowledging that "hunger is a real issue in Gaza," the US ambassador to the UN repeated a debunked claim that the world's leading authority on starvation lowered its standards to declare a famine.
Aug 27, 2025
Every member nation of the United Nations Security Council except the United States on Wednesday affirmed that Israel's engineered famine in Gaza is "man-made" as 10 more Palestinians died of starvation amid what UN experts warned is a worsening crisis.
Fourteen of the 15 Security Council members issued a joint statement calling for an immediate Gaza ceasefire, release of all remaining hostages held by Hamas, and lifting of all Israeli restrictions on aid delivery into the embattled strip, where hundreds of Palestinians have died from starvation and hundreds of thousands more are starving.
"Famine in Gaza must be stopped immediately," they said. "Time is of the essence. The humanitarian emergency must be addressed without delay and Israel must reverse course."
"We express our profound alarm and distress at the IPC data on Gaza, published last Friday. It clearly and unequivocally confirms famine," the statement said, referring to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification's declaration of Phase 5, or a famine "catastrophe," in the strip.
"We trust the IPC's work and methodology," the 14 countries declared. "This is the first time famine has been officially confirmed in the Middle East region. Every day, more persons are dying as a result of malnutrition, many of them children."
"This is a man-made crisis," the statement stresses. "The use of starvation as a weapon of war is clearly prohibited under international humanitarian law."
Israel, which is facing a genocide case at the UN's International Court of Justice, denies the existence of famine in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Court of Justice for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder and forced starvation.
The 14 countries issuing the joint statement are: Algeria, China, Denmark, France, Greece, Guyana, Pakistan, Panama, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Somalia, and the United Kingdom.
While acknowledging that "hunger is a real issue in Gaza and that there are significant humanitarian needs which must be met," US Ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea rejected the resolution and the IPC's findings.
"We can only solve problems with credibility and integrity," Shea told the Security Council. "Unfortunately, the recent report from the IPC doesn't pass the test on either."
Shea also repeated the debunked claim that the IPC's "normal standards were changed for [the IPC famine] declaration."
The Security Council's affirmation that the Gaza famine is man-made mirrors the findings of food experts who have accused Israel of orchestrating a carefully planned campaign of mass starvation in the strip.
The UN Palestinian Rights Bureau and UN humanitarian officials also warned Wednesday that the famine in Gaza is "only getting worse."
"Over half a million people currently face starvation, destitution, and death," the humanitarian experts said. "By the end of September, that number could exceed 640,000."
"Failure to act now will have irreversible consequences," they added.
Wednesday's UN actions came as Israel intensified Operation Gideon's Chariots 2, the campaign to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse around 1 million Palestinians from Gaza, possibly into a reportedly proposed concentration camp that would be built over the ruins of the southern city of Rafah.
The Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) on Wednesday reported 10 more Palestinian deaths "due to famine and malnutrition" over the past 24 hours, including two children, bringing the number of famine victims to at least 313, 119 of them children.
All told, Israel's 691-day assault and siege on Gaza has left at least 230,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, according to the GHM.
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Over 100 Children Have Died of Severe Hunger Amid Israeli Siege: Gaza Health Ministry
"People are being starved, children are being killed, families have lost everything," said the United Nations agency for Palestinian Refugees.
Aug 11, 2025
The Gaza Health Ministry announced on Monday that more than 100 children in Gaza have died of severe hunger during Israel's siege of the territory.
As Al Jazeera reported, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said that a total of 222 Palestinians have died from hunger during the siege, including 101 children. The vast majority of these deaths have come in just the last three weeks when the hunger crisis in Gaza started to garner international media attention, the ministry said.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East on Monday emphasized the direness of the situation in a statement calling for a cease-fire to allow more aid into Gaza.
"People are being starved, children are being killed," the agency said. "Families have lost everything. Political will and leadership can stop an escalation and end the war. Every heartbeat counts."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that there is no starvation crisis in Gaza and has said such reports are part of a "fake" propaganda campaign waged by Israel's enemies.
However, it isn't just the Gaza Health Ministry warning of a hunger crisis in the region, as international charity Save the Children last week said that 43% of pregnant and breastfeeding women who showed up to its clinics in Gaza last month were malnourished, which represented a threefold increase since March, when the Israeli military imposed a total siege on the area.
The latest numbers about starvation in Gaza come as the Israeli government is pushing forward with a plan to fully invade and occupy Gaza, which experts have warned will only exacerbate the humanitarian crisis among its people.
"If these plans are implemented, they will likely trigger another calamity in Gaza, reverberating across the region and causing further forced displacement, killings, and destruction," said Miroslav Jenca, the United Nations assistant secretary general, over the weekend.
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Refuting Netanyahu's Lie, Trump Acknowledges 'Real Starvation' in Gaza
"Trump and Congress must decide: Will you continue to support the starvation of children, or are you willing to use all possible U.S. leverage to stop this horrific humanitarian disaster?" said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Jul 28, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday refuted fugitive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's lie that "there is no starvation in Gaza"—where health officials reported 14 more deaths from malnutrition in the past 24 hours—as critics underscored that Trump is what one Democratic lawmaker called "a willing accomplice" to the horror.
Trump, who met British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Turnberry, Scotland, was asked by a reporter whether he agrees with Netanyahu's false claim.
"I don't know. I mean, based on television, I would say not particularly because those children look very hungry," the president replied. "That's real starvation stuff. I see it, and you can't fake that."
Trump also repeated an Israeli claim that Hamas is stealing food aid—an assertion refuted by his own administration, as well as IDF officials.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Monday that at least 14 Palestinians had starved to death in the past 24 hours, bringing the number of malnutrition deaths to 147—including 88 children—since Israel launched it assault and siege of Gaza following the Hamas-led attack of October 2023.
Gaza's Government Media Office warned Monday that "there is an imminent risk of death for thousands of infants in the Gaza Strip due to the Israeli occupation's ban on the entry of baby formula."
U.S. Vice President JD Vance told reporters Monday during a visit to Canton, Ohio: "I don't know if you've all seen these images. You have got some really, really heartbreaking cases. You've got little kids who are clearly starving to death. Israel's got to do more to let that aid in. And we've also got to wage war on Hamas."
Israel has been accused by United Nations officials of "flagrant disregard" for International Court of Justice orders to prevent genocidal acts and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Trump said Monday that the U.S. is "going to set up food centers where the people can walk in and no boundaries, we're not going to have fences."
More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops while seeking aid at distribution points run by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, according to the United Nations human rights office. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officers and soldiers say they were ordered to shoot and shell civilians at GHF aid centers.
The president also said that the U.S. will "supply funds... to spend a little money on some food" for Gazans. On Sunday, the president claimed that the U.S. recently gave $60 million worth of food to Gaza "and nobody even acknowledged it."
"Nobody talks about it," he added. "And it makes you feel a little bad when you do that...and nobody said, 'Thank you very much.'"
Trump provided no evidence to support his $60 million claim. Last month, The Guardian reported that the U.S. had authorized a $30 million grant for the GHF.
The mounting starvation deaths in Gaza have garnered widespread U.S. media attention and drawn rebuke from an increasing number of American politicians—including staunch supporters of Israel.
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said Monday in a statement that "I cannot defend the indefensible... I am through supporting the actions of the current Israeli government and will advocate—and vote—for an end to any United States support whatsoever until there is a demonstrable change in the direction of Israeli policy."
Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) said Sunday on social media: "More Palestinian children dying of starvation. Netanyahu's spokesperson keeps lying and his war by starvation keeps killing. Trump, once again, too weak to stand up to Netanyahu, is a willing accomplice. Belated, token airdrops offer no aid [for] any of the sick, disabled, and elderly still alive."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt), a vocal critic of the Netanyahu government, posted the following on the social media site X:
Although the IDF said it had begun implementing "tactical pauses" in some parts of Gaza on Sunday, at least 62 Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks in the strip, including 34 aid-seekers.
At least 59,773 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 2023, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. More than 144,000 others have been wounded. At least 14,000 people are also missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of bombed buildings.
On Monday, the Israeli groups B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel joined the many international organizations and experts calling Israel's obliteration of Gaza a genocide. The International Court of Justice is currently weighing a genocide case against Israel brought by South Africa.
Meanwhile, Israel is seeking the Trump administration's assistance as it pursues a plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza of its Palestinians, including by forcibly relocating them into concentration camps. Trump previously proposed the ethnic cleansing of Gaza so that the coastal enclave can be transformed into the "Riviera of the Middle East."
On Monday, Trump claimed he told Netanyahu during a weekend phone call, "Bibi... you have to now maybe do it a different way."
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Famine Expert: Israel's Starvation of Gaza Most 'Minutely Designed and Controlled' Since WWII
"This is preventable starvation," said Alex de Waal. "It is entirely man-made."
Jul 22, 2025
A leading global authority on famine on Monday accused Israel of orchestrating a carefully planned campaign of mass starvation in the Gaza Strip, remarks that came amid a steadily rising death toll from malnutrition caused by the 654-day U.S.-backed Israeli siege and obliteration of the Palestinian enclave.
"I've been working on this topic for more than four decades, and there is no case since World War II of starvation that is being so minutely designed and controlled," Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, told Al Jazeera.
"This is preventable starvation. It is entirely man-made," de Waal added. "And every stage of this has been predicted, and at every stage action could have been taken—by Israel, by the international authorities, [the] international community, those who back Israel—to prevent what is happening now... Those steps have simply not been taken."
The Gaza Health Ministry—whose casualty figures have been deemed accurate by Israeli military officials and a likely undercount by multiple peer-reviewed studies—said Tuesday that 15 more Palestinians, including four children, died from malnutrition over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of starvation deaths in the coastal enclave to at least 101, including 80 children, since October 2023. The ministry said that 21 Gaza children have starved to death over the past three days alone.
When combined with lack of medicine, malnutrition has claimed hundreds of Palestinian lives in Gaza, according to officials there.
"I am so hungry," Ruwaida Amer, a 30-year-old Gaza woman, wrote for +972 Magazine Monday. "We are starving. My body is breaking down. My mother is collapsing from exhaustion. My cousin cheats death every day for a morsel of aid. Gaza's children are dying in front of our eyes, and we are powerless to help them."
Another Gaza woman, Amina Badir, told Amer while clutching her starving 3-year-old: "Tell me how to save my daughter Rahaf from death. For a week she's eaten nothing but a single spoon of lentils each day."
"She's suffering from malnutrition. There's no treatment, no milk at the hospital," Badir added. "They've taken away her right to live. I see death in her eyes."
Gaza medical officials say 17,000 children are severely malnourished in the strip. According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, also known as the IPC scale, at least 244,000 people in Gaza are in Phase 5, defined as such "an extreme deprivation of food" that "starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition are or will likely be evident."
The "complete siege" imposed on Gaza immediately following the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel has fueled widespread starvation and disease, and has been condemned as a war crime. The International Criminal Court last year ordered the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged murder and forced starvation of Gazans. The International Court of Justice is also weighing a genocide case filed against Israel by South Africa.
Amid intense international pressure, Israel partially lifted its siege of Gaza in May. However, de Waal and others say the move is wholly inadequate to prevent the famine taking hold in the strip.
"The partial lifting was not to bring in the kind of humanitarian program that we have been familiar with as humanitarians over the decades," de Waal told Al Jazeera Monday. "It was to bring in a type of rationed program that is simply an arm of the Israeli military."
Israel has also come under intense criticism for its method of delivering aid in Gaza via the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, whose distribution points have been the sites of near-daily massacres. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officers and troops say they were ordered to shoot and shell desperate aid-seekers at GHF distribution centers. Officials said at least 10 aid-seekers were killed on Tuesday alone.
"The killing of civilians seeking aid in Gaza is indefensible."
"As of July 21, we have recorded 1,054 people killed in Gaza while trying to get food; 766 of them were killed in the vicinity of GHF sites and 288 near [United Nations] and other humanitarian organizations' aid convoys," U.N. human rights spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan told Agence France-Presse.
Kaja Kallas, the European Union's foreign policy chief, said Tuesday that "the killing of civilians seeking aid in Gaza is indefensible," adding that the "IDF must stop killing people at distribution points."
Overall, at least 59,029 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 2023, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. More than 142,000 others have been wounded, and at least 14,000 more are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed buildings.Other international humanitarian experts also weighed in on the growing Gaza famine, with Michael Fakhri, the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food, telling Al Jazeera Monday that the "man-made" starvation in the strip "is a war crime."
"Israel has been using aid as a way to bait civilians and has been killing civilians who have been seeking aid," he said. "What we're seeing now is the most horrific stage of Israel's 20-month starvation campaign."
"What we're seeing now is the most horrific stage of Israels starvation campaign... Israel has been using aid as a way to bait civilians & has been killing civilians who have been seeking aid..."Michael Fakhri, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food
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— Saul Staniforth (@saulstaniforth.bsky.social) July 21, 2025 at 11:10 PM
Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Reuters Tuesday that "our last tent, our last food parcel, our last relief items have been distributed. There is nothing left."
"Hundreds of truckloads have been sitting in warehouses or in Egypt or elsewhere, and costing our Western European donors a lot of money, but they are blocked from coming in," he explained. "That's why we are so angry. Because our job is to help."
"Israel is not yielding," Egeland added. "They just want to paralyze our work."
This article has been corrected to state that 244,000 Palestinians in Gaza were in Phase 5 of starvation in May 2025. A previous version incorrectly stated that 85% of the population was in Phase 5.
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5,800+ Gaza Children Diagnosed With Malnutrition in June: UNICEF
"Children's bodies are wasting away," the agency said. "This is not just a nutrition crisis. It's a child survival emergency."
Jul 14, 2025
More than 5,800 children in the Gaza Strip were diagnosed with malnutrition in June alone amid Israel's ongoing U.S.-backed siege and annihilation of the Palestinian territory, the United Nations Children's Fund said Sunday.
According to the UNICEF, at least 5,870 malnourished children in Gaza were hospitalized last month for urgent treatment, including more than 1,000 cases of severe malnutrition, the most lethal form of the ailment. Malnutrition diagnoses have increased in Gaza over each of the past four months. In May, 5,119 children between 6 months and 5 years of age suffering acute malnutrition were admitted for treatment in Gaza, as Common Dreams reported.
"Child malnutrition in Gaza is rising fast," the agency warned in a statement. "Children's bodies are wasting away. This is not just a nutrition crisis. It's a child survival emergency."
Gaza medical officials said late last month that more than 300 Palestinians—including many children and elders—had recently died from malnutrition and lack of medical care due to Israel's siege and bombing. The Gaza Health Ministry says at least 67 children have died of starvation since October 2023, when Israeli forces began obliterating the enclave in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack on Israel.
In addition to blocking food and other humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, Israel Defense Forces troops have killed more than 800 people at or near food distribution points run by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. IDF officers and soldiers say they were ordered to fire live bullets and artillery shells into crowds of desperate aid-seekers.
In recent days, Israeli forces have also massacred children and others queued up for malnutrition treatment at an international charity clinic in Deir al-Balah and waiting for water in the al-Nuseirat refugee camp. The IDF attributed the latter attack to a "technical error."
More than 310 United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East staffers have also been killed by Israeli forces since the start of the Gaza onslaught.
Israel's forced starvation of Gaza has been condemned by numerous national governments, progressive members of U.S. Congress, international human rights groups, and United Nations experts, who have called the policy genocidal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder and forced starvation.
Israel's policies and practices in Gaza are also the subject of a genocide case currently before the International Court of Justice, which has ordered tIsrael to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza and to allow humanitarian aid into the strip. Israel has been accused of ignoring these orders. Israeli leaders including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have called for the bombing of Gaza humanitarian aid depots and IDF soldiers—who purportedly fight for the "word's most moral army"—have posted videos on social media celebrating or mocking the starvation of Palestinians.
Since October 2023, at least 58,386 Palestinians have been killed and more than 139,000 wounded by Israeli forces in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, whose figures have been found to be accurate or an undercount by peer-reviewed studies. At least 14,000 people are also missing. Most of Gaza's more than 2 million people have also been forcibly displaced, often multiple times.
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